Across the world, everything is changing – the way we live, traditional roles in society, and the way we connect to one another. Recognising this, governments and policy makers are starting to design services with, and not for, people. Increasingly, ordinary citizens begin to see themselves as active agents in shaping their own lives. This global shift is reflected in the rise of the sharing economy and the new ways citizens are accessing and using big and open data. Instead of a world in which things move top down or bottom up, they now move sideways, from people to people, peer to peer.

Last November we participated in the 8th edition of the annual SIX summer school that took place, for first time, in an Indian city: Mumbai.

The annual SIX Summer Schools brings together leading social innovation thinkers and practitioners from across the world to explore some of the key issues facing the field –– such as scaling and innovation in a time of crisis. In this last year session, there were present participants coming from more than 20 different countries across 6 continents, bringing the most diverse range of skills and experience.

Our contribution to this diverse, multidisciplinary scenario focused on how new type of organizational structures, such as distributed networks, can replace traditional governance structures and can be used by power holders to facilitate innovation processes and citizen participation.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="es"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can governments play a role in creating distributed networks for facilitating innovation? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sixmumbai?src=hash">#sixmumbai</a> <a href="https://t.co/l9rtOgzzpf">pic.twitter.com/l9rtOgzzpf</a></p>— Zainab Kakal (@zainabkakal) <a href="https://twitter.com/zainabkakal/status/661869289461428225">noviembre 4, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="es"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Grassroots innovation - how do we engage people who have the pain and need in social innovation? <a href="https://twitter.com/anilgb">@anilgb</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sixmumbai?src=hash">#sixmumbai</a> <a href="https://t.co/S2icx9Ksy8">pic.twitter.com/S2icx9Ksy8</a></p>— Carolina Escobar M. (@cescobarmejia) <a href="https://twitter.com/cescobarmejia/status/661844422695473152">noviembre 4, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="es"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Reflection with all members in SIX Mumbai <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SIXMumbai?src=hash">#SIXMumbai</a> <a href="https://t.co/RrtIsLOhVF">pic.twitter.com/RrtIsLOhVF</a></p>— Re:public Inc. (@Republic_inc) <a href="https://twitter.com/Republic_inc/status/662584348235968512">noviembre 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/socialinnovationexchange/albums/72157660985699110" title="SIX Mumbai: The Connected Urban Life"><img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/647/23214981506_1b907951d4_c.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="SIX Mumbai: The Connected Urban Life"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>